BBC spy drama spooks TV watchdog

The TV watchdog has rapped the BBC for failing to warn viewers of a gruesome scene in its spy drama Spooks, in which a character was killed in a deep fat fryer.

More than 250 viewers complained after Helen, a young MI5 trainee played by Lisa Faulkner, was shown being murdered after an undercover operation went wrong.

The character's hand was plunged into a deep fat fryer before her captors were shown pushing her head towards the oil.

The cameras then cut away before Helen was shown being shot in the head.

The BBC admitted the episode had "clearly disturbed" a number of viewers and expressed its "regret for that".

However, it defended Spooks, which it described as "a serious piece of television... [showing] the kind of threat which might be faced by agents engaged in the fight against terrorism".

The BBC said the show was broadcast after the 9pm watershed and had been preceded by a warning to viewers.

The broadcasting standards commission said the death was "shocking but... in the context was acceptable and important for the later narrative".

However, the watchdog said the warning had "failed to signal the level of violence to come" and said the death was "sufficiently violent and disturbing to require a specific, clear and unambiguous warning to this effect, which had not been achieved".

More than 100 viewers complained to the BBC and 154 people contacted the BSC. The complaint was partly upheld.

Separately, Radio 1 DJ Chris Moyles was criticised for remarks he made about singer Charlotte Church on his afternoon show.

Broadcasting on her 16th birthday, the presenter asked Church to let him "lead her through the forest of sexuality now that she had reached 16".

The commission acknowledged Moyles' "well-known approach and style" but said the "explicit sexual content and humour had exceeded acceptable boundaries for the time of transmission".

Elsewhere in the BSC's complaints bulletin, published today, Newsround was criticised after an interviewee encouraged the use of cannabis in an item about Prince Harry's drug use.